Ashley's Birthday

Ashley turned 14 on July 17. Crazy! When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she said she wanted minion cupcakes. I thought that was a funny request from her, but was excited to make them (we had found some online a few weeks before her birthday).

They turned out really cute!

She got a bumblebee pillow pet from Aunt Vicky. It was her favorite present (of course, it's exactly what she asked for).

We had the family over for dinner and cupcakes. It's always fun when we all get together! The adults get to visit and the cousins have a blast playing together.

Next year, Ashley gets her driving permit. YIKES!!

Aaron's Birthday

Aaron turned 35 on May 19. I got a bunch of cake pans from my mom, so I thought I'd try making him a frog cake. Aaron thought that was a good idea, but only if I made a red velvet cake. So, that's what I did.

My mom always made cool cakes when we were a kid. I didn't realize then how much work went into them. My hand was so sore by the time I was done making all the little green stars that covered the frog part of the cake. I definately need more practice if I decide to try something like this again. The cake turned out ok, but I forgot to save some white frosting for the eyes. Oh well.


Aaron was happy with it and that's all that matters. The kids loved that it was red when we cut into it (cuz it looked like blood).

Sara took some goofy kid pictures while I was cutting up the cake.

All Aaron wanted for his birthday was a set of golf clubs. He even told his family he just wanted money so he could buy some.

He got some balls and tees and finally some golf clubs from Sara! They weren't what he was hoping for, but the kids thought they were cool.

I had bought golf clubs a couple weeks before this and has left them at Sara's. She brought them over the night of his party and left them in her trunk. After the presents were opened and the kids were playing, I told Aaron he needed to get a small bookshelf out of Sara's trunk that she was giving to us. He grudgingly went outside to get them and got a surprise!

Now he was finally smiling! Hopefully he'll be able to find some time to play. We're going to be pretty busy fixing up the house the next couple of months.

Fun Run

Today was the Fun Run put on by Logan City School District. All the 4th and 5th grade students from 6 elementary schools get together to run. I haven't had a 4th/5th grader in Logan School District before, so I didn't know much about it (Ashley was in Cache County School District in elementary school, so we missed out on this with her). All I knew was that Austin was excited about it, but he didn't tell me I should come to it.

I got a call this morning from the secretary at Ellis this morning and learned that Austin won first place in his heat. So I headed over to Adams Park for the awards ceremony. The streets were blocked off, there were hundreds of 4th and 5th graders everywhere and each school was wearing a different colored t-shirt. That's when I realized that the Fun Run is a BIG deal for the kids.

The 4th grade boys ran in 3 heats. Austin was the winner of his heat. His good friend, Tristen, came in 2nd place.

Austin got a gold medal and Tristen got silver.

He was pretty excited about winning.

Yep, I'm proud of my goofy kid!

Unexpected Thursday

Nowadays, you only need to leave stitches in for 5 days. Doctors like to pull them out before you get Frankenstein scars. So we went in on Wednesday afternoon and got Abbie's stiches out. The nurse put a little piece of surgical tape on her head where it bled and pulled apart a little as he took the stitches out. She was suppose to leave it on for a few days. Yeah, right. She pulled it off the next morning at preschool. Turns out that should have been the least of my worries that day.

Later that night, I went to my first Zumba class with my sister. Oh my gosh, that was a workout. I have no idea how the teacher can move like that!! The class was at 8 pm, so I got home a little after 9. I was sitting upstairs on the bed talking to Aaron, when I hear Ashley downstairs yell, "Mom! Abbie's bleeding!" So Aaron and I run downstairs, and Abbie's face is covered in blood. Apparently, she had moved the computer chair over to the entertainment center to try to get Austin's sucker off one of the top shelves, fell, and smacked her head on the shelves as she came down. Yep, our second trip to the ER in less than a week.

When we're checking into the ER, Aaron notices that it's not only her eye area that's bleeeding. There's blood on the back of her head. She had a puncture wound where she must have hit a corner. Yikes. The nurse who takes us back says, "You look really familiar. Weren't you just here the other day?" Yep, it's the same nurse we had on our last trip to the ER and she wasn't the only person to make a similar comment.

Abbie was smiling as usual and chatting it up with the nurses and doctor. I thought she would have been tired since it was after 10 pm by the time we were all settled in the room.

She managed to hit her head just right so that she pretty much had to get stitches where she just had them removed from her eyebrow. What are the chances of that?

We finally got to leave the hospital just after 1 am and little Abbie has 9 more stitches: 8 on her face and one on the back of her head. Yes, Aaron and I discussed putting her in a bubble or wrapping her in bubblewrap.

Here she is Friday morning, showing off her swollen eye. She never complains and always insists that it doesn't hurt. She's really good about making sure I put the antibiotic ointment on a couple times a day.

Here she is Sunday morning, sporting a nice black eye. It's getting more colorful as time goes by.

Now I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nothing else will happen. You would think she would calm down a little after all this, but she's still full of energy. My sister-in-law and her family came over for dinner on Friday night, and Abbie spent all night chasing after her cousins. Crazy kid. And just for the record, I do NOT beat my child! Just felt that I needed to say that. :)

Unexpected Friday

Yesterday, we found out the home we put an offer on back in October and were outbid on, is now back on the market. So today we met with our mortgage guy and our realtor. As we were leaving the house, Abbie ran to the car and fell face first onto the road. Ouch! I was talking to the realtor, so Ashley got Abbie. There was blood all over her face. Aaron ran over and determined a trip to the ER was in order.

Once we got to the hospital, Abbie had calmed down. She got to put on the wonderful hopsital gown and the RN brought her in a TV and a Barbie movie. She was excited about that.


She was even in the mood to smile for the camera phone while giving Daddy a hug. She really is a tough little thing.


Ashley wanted to watch the Barbie movie too. Apparently she has the sountrack to Barbie the Princess and the Pauper and knew the words to all the songs. (Yes, I was laughing about that).

Abbie was sedated while the doctor cleaned out her gashes and stitched her up. Aaron and Ashley watched, and I was happy to sit on the other side of the room. It took 6 stitches in her forehead and 4 on her eyebrow to fix her up. Watching her coming out of sedation was pretty funny. She kept asking what happened to her eyes (they were twitching and she couldn't really focus on anything). After spending two hours in the ER, they finally let us go home.

I thought for sure that Abbie would fall right to sleep since it was 7:30 pm and she hasn't napped today. But she's wide awake, watching a movie. She's in her pajamas, wrapped up in her blanket, and cuddling with her unicorn.

She has some road rash on her face too and might end up with a black eye. Poor little girl. She's happy now, but we'll see what happens when the pain killer wears off.

Her brothers should be home soon. They'll probably think her stitches are pretty cool. I certainly didn't expect to spend my Friday night like this. Kids sure make life interesting!